Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy’s two math modeling teams recently received honorable mentions in the nationwide MathWorks Math Modeling competition in which students are asked to use mathematics to evaluate real world problems.

Of 877 teams nationwide, only 28 teams were recognized. Two were from Holy Trinity. Only one other school in the United States earned this distinction.

“This isn’t a math competition in which a team would compete half-heartedly.Only the best students from the best schools across the country compete,” said Trevor Herntier, who teaches the school’s math modeling class and is a team advisor.“Statistically, a student is more likely to get into Harvard than to receive recognition in this competition.”

In this year’s contest, students were asked to build a mathematical model to predict the spread of nicotine use due to vaping during the next 10 years, create a model that simulates the likelihood of addiction among high school seniors, and develop a metric to show the impact of substance abuse.

Each team received just 14 hours to complete the task and show its work in a 28-page formal report. VV